文/Madhu Fernando　译/赵克琛

当一个项目成功时，大家走到一起互相祝贺；当一个项目失败时，只有一个人会被指责：项目经理。为了更好地处理这种要么成功要么失败的情况，你必须提高你的软技能。

“情商”这个概念正变得越来越流行，它可以帮助你成功地处理项目政治和人员沟通，而且情商还使你能够在某种程度上表现自己，从而在每次项目成功时获得认可和嘉奖。

“情商是指如何聪明地使用你的情绪。”尼尔·E·贝彻瓦斯说，他是澳大利亚企业家研究院商学副教授、执行导师和变革管理顾问。“了解你何时悲伤、高兴、生气或沮丧并不困难，但情商的确可以告诉你何时该谨慎地与老板或同事相处。”

出色的经理在艰难的时期必须要控制自己的情绪，然后根据当时的环境、情况和人员关系来决定最有效的沟通手段，托尼·保罗这样认为。他是澳大利亚PicoNet咨询公司的负责人和项目管理顾问。“在项目和工作环境的背景下，我使用感觉去了解我的客户、团队和同事如何理解我的观点和行为。”他说。“毕竟，我要制造些影响，感受工作场所的气氛同倾听和阅读报告一样重要。尽管我们依赖于经验来估计不同环境下合适的沟通方式，但理解个人期望对信息有效传达的方式同样重要。”

认识自我，提高自我

研究人员认为自我意识、自我管理、社会认知和关系管理是取得生活和事业成功的关键情商能力。

情绪的自我意识能够使你理解你的感觉，了解你所有的想法和行为，它可以使你更好地认识自己作为一名项目经理的能力，并且只承诺那些你能做到的事情。当你了解了自己的情绪，你可以避免做出无效的决定。

我们每个人都应该知道自己情绪的本性所遗传的先天弱点，大卫·C·奈斯比特说，他是澳大利亚墨尔本市The TEMPORARY-Manager公司的负责人。“我在管理项目时，如果我们在处理日常事务和项目上的困难上出现分歧，我必须能够提高与团队成员、生产商和供应商的社交能力。”

奈斯比特已经在许多项目中成功的应用了情商，情绪的自我意识对项目成果有重大影响，他说。“清楚地理解我们自己情绪天生的优缺点的能力是非常重要的。我们要庆幸：我们没有人孤立的发挥作用，我们要改正像过分自信这样潜在的不利行为，以不至于使我们对团队其他成员过于专横。”

对于提高团队士气和凝聚力，情商也扮演了一个重要的角色。“情商为我们对待特殊的人和事时所需要提高的那些方面提供了指引，还有我们那些擅长的方面。”玛丽·路·雷布德说，她是PMI墨尔本分部的副主席。“我们甚至可以勇于同项目团队进行坦诚布公的沟通，勇敢地揭露那些有待提高的方面以建立信任。

自我管理是一种保持自己诚实正直品质的能力。在逐渐认识自我感受的时候，我们将会自信地面对大部分事态，即使是在项目失控、政治斗争激烈和意外的变更发生时，我们的同伴也会把我们视为可靠的合作者。

如果你提高自己了解他人感受的能力，你可以变通你的反应与对项目团队和利害干系人的影响。你可以知道在合适的时候说合适的话，你也可以预见团队成员的期望、动机和怀疑。而且，你可以认识到如何推销自己和如何建立一个可靠的关系网。

“那些锻炼情商能力的经理能够经常成功的建立关系和激励他人。他们可以比别人更快地升到高层。”阿罗莎·费尔南多说，她是跨国建设开发商Sierra建设有限公司下属的Sierra澳洲项目和Sierra全球网络公司的CEO。“他们擅长于管理项目并且与干系人建立良好的关系。”

均衡评价标准

情商除了有助于搭建成功的关系外，它还可以用作选择合适员工和经理的标准。情商能力现在被许多企业采用来进行招聘和提升。现在许多公司错误地认为项目管理不需要什么正规培训，这样，应该有一个均衡的方法来选择项目经理以确保他们拥有项目和管理能力，“软技能”：情商和“硬技能”：技术。

爱立信澳大利亚公司采用了情商作为项目管理技能规划的一部分。克里斯·卡特莱特是爱立信澳大利亚公司项目管理技能经理，他曾协助PMI开发项目经理能力发展架构（PMCDF）。他说：“我认为相对项目管理的九大知识领域来说，情商提供了更宽广的视角。但在这方面很少有经验资料，我发现这好像要依赖于经理们对此的理解。”

熟能生巧

澳大利亚墨尔本市的摩西项目服务有限公司的主任顾问琳达·伯尼特别欣赏提高情商能力的努力。她说：“如果传统项目管理过程中的困难包括开发一份合理的进度表、WBS和挣值分析图的话，那以我的经验，在各个层面上发展和维持与干系人有效的关系的工作、管理个人情绪，还有优化对项目有利的组织内部政治环境等这些工作会更加困难的。”

一步一步提高情商

●自信。你是项目经理，你管理着项目。主动承担责任。当你了解自身的时候，你就会自信的领导项目。
●尝试理解团队成员的期望、动机、志向和个人能力。
●对业务的人员方面给予足够的重视。别指望技术可以搞定一切。把人作为项目里最重要的财产来对待。
●与团队成员建立感情。尝试去理解和信任别人。让他们知道你会提供帮助。与团队紧密团结并提供支持。
●谨慎地处理冲突。在了解了事态之后再行动。
●平易近人。定期地与团队成员谈话，倾听他们的问题和关注点，讨论他们的想法。
●激励你的项目成员，帮助他们渡过难关，给予他们支持和鼓励。
●设法与项目干系人建立良好的关系。
●不要完全依赖于技术培训来取得项目成功。在规划培训和发展计划时，集中精力在项目人员方面。
●不要过分依赖于流程。灵活地进行变更并且要有创造性。

作者简介：Madhu Fernando是澳大利亚墨尔本市的管理咨询公司Innova Strategies公司的总裁兼主任顾问。

原文：

Strong Feelings
Manage projects, people and politics better by using your emotional intelligence.

By Madhu Fernando

When a project succeeds, everyone steps up for a pat on the back. When a project fails, only one person can expect the blame: the manager. To better handle these make-or-break situations, you must improve your softer people skills.

Known as the increasingly popular “emotional intelligence” (EI), these skills help you successfully handle project politics and human interactions and enable you to present yourself in a way so you can be recognized and reworded every time you achieve a project success.

“EI is about using your emotions intelligently,” says Neil E. Béchervaise, executive mentor, change management consultant and adjunct professor of business, Australian Graduate Institute of Entrepreneurship. “Knowing when you are sad, happy, angry or frustrated doesn’t take great smarts, but it does tell you when you need to be careful about how you react with your boss and your work team.”

Competent manager must control their emotions during trying times and determine the most efficient method of communication, which depends on the environment, the circumstance and the relationship between people, according to Tony Paul, a project management consultant and principal of PicoNet Consulting in Australia. “ I use my senses to read how my clients, team and colleagues perceive my views and actions in the context of the project and the working environment,” he says. “After all, I am there to make a difference, and reading the mood of the workplace is as important as listening to what is said and reading the brief. Even though we use our experiences to expect communication in certain manner for each circumstance, and understanding of the individual’s expectation is critical to the way in which a message is most effectively delivered.”

Keep It Real
Researchers suggest self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management are the key emotional competencies you should practice to succeed in you personal and professional lives.

Emotional self-awareness allows you to understand what you feel, to be aware of all your thoughts and actions, and as a project manager, to better understand you capabilities and to commit only to what can be delivered. When you recognize your emotions, you can avoid making ineffective decisions.

Each of us must understand “the innate weaknesses that are inherent to my ‘emotional’ nature,” says David C. Nesbit, principal, The TEMPORARY-Manager, Melbourne, Australia. “When I am managing projects, I must be able to improve my social interactions with team members, vendors and suppliers in such a manner that communications are as efficient as possible given that we all have differing attitudes and opinions when dealing with the day-today issues and difficulties experienced in our projects.”

Nesbit, who has successfully applied EI to a variety of projects, says emotional self-awareness will have a significant impact on a project’s outcome. “The ability to clearly understand the nature of our [own] emotional strengths and weaknesses is vital,” he says. “We must appreciate that one of us function in i9solation and that potentially adverse behaviors such as strong assertiveness or over-confidence need to be modified so we are not too over-bearing to other team members.”

EI also plays a significant part in building team moral and cohesion. “EI provides a guide for those areas we need to improve and also areas in which we are strong and know that we will be good at dealing with a particular person or issue,” says Mary-Lou Raybould, PMI’s Melbourne chapter vice president. “We might even be brave enough to open up to our project teams and disclose areas where we are not so strong as a way of being open and honest on the path to building trust.”

Self-management is the ability to control you emotions with honesty and integrity. In identifying how and what you feel, you will be able to manage most situations confidently, and your peers will view you as a trustworthy collaborator, even when projects get out of control, politics become heated and changes occur unexpectedly.

As you improve your ability to understand how others perceive a situation, you can modify your reactions and any subsequent interactions with project team members and stakeholders. You will know what to say and when to say it, and you can foresee team members’ expectations, their motivations and their uncertainties. In addition, you’ll see how to market yourself and how to build a strong peer network.

“Managers who practice emotional competencies are always successful I building relationships and motivating others. They climb to the top much faster than the others,” says Arosha Fernando, CEO of Sierra Projects Australia and Sierra Global Network, a subsidiary of Sierra Constructions Ltd., a multinational infrastructure development company. “They are good at managing their projects as well as building successful relationships with all the stakeholders.”

Balance the Scales
In addition to making for successful relationship building, EI helps in the proper selection of staff and managers. Emotional competencies are now used by many organizations to hire and promote people. While some organizations mistakenly assume project management requires little formal training, there should be a balanced approach in selecting project managers to ensure that they possess project and management skills: both ‘soft’ EI skills and hard technical skills.

Ericsson Australia uses EI skills as part of its project management competence mapping. “I find it gives us a broader view than just looking at the nine knowledge areas,” says Chris Cartwright, Ericsson Australia manager of project management competence, who worked with PMI to help develop the project Manager Competency Development Framework. “While it is difficult to provide empirical data in this area I have found that it seems to be in line with the perceptions of the managers.”

Practice Makes Perfect
Lynda Bourne, PMP a principal consultant for Mosaic Project Services Pty Ltd., Melbourne, Australia, especially appreciates the hard work involved in perfecting emotional competencies. “If the traditional project management processes of developing a good schedule, a work breakdown structure and an earned value chart are considered hard,” she says, “then in my experience, the job of developing and maintaining effective stakeholder relationships at all levels, managing one’s emotions and optimizing the internal politics of major organizations to the benefit of the project is much harder.”

EI Step by step
●Be confident. You are the project manager, and it is your project. Take ownership. When you understand yourself, you will be able to lead with confidence.
●Try to understand you team members’ expectations, motivations, aspirations, and individual capabilities to perform the job well.
●Give right priority to the human side of the business. Do not rely on technology to do everything. Consider people the most important asset in your projects.
●Be empathic toward members. Try to understand and trust people. Show them you are there to help. Work closely with you team and show you support.
●Manage conflicts carefully. Do not react to situations before you understand them.
●Always be approachable. Talk to the team members regularly, listen to their problems and concerns and discuss their ideas.
●Motivate your project team members and help them get through difficult situations, while providing support and encouragement.
●Work on building better relationships with all stakeholders.
●Do not rely on technical training completely to achieve project success. Focus on human aspects of projects when you plan training and development sessions.
●Don’t trust the process too much. Be flexible to changes and be innovative.

Madhu Fernando is president and principal consultant with Innova Strategies, a management consultancy based in Melbourne, Australia.

【 发表评论 0条 】